Today, is India a rich country or a poor country ?

[mahadevan]

hey guys, offcourse we are poor, but look at the pace of economic development since MR Rao/Singh started the liberalization. Even the gap between the rich and poor may widen (it would happen with more capitalism) but the poor are relatively better off then they were before. It is a slow process, but we would get there eventually. It is just a matter of time. Fortunately we are a functioning democracy, look at the voters rejection of Naidu/Krishna. IT or other high tech cannot solve the problems of the masses, but they, by their consumption pattern can trigger an economic turnaround of the masses, provided the goods and service are created by the masses. We need more hi volume manufacturing activities, though they may be lower in the value chain, they do provide huge employment potential.

[Sandeep]

Mahadevan,

You are theoritically correct but how we keep track to know whether this is happening. While the government is so eager to say we have 8.1% GDP growth this year why are they hesitant to give the below proverty line index (I am calling it PLI).

News papers continuesly (mostly on a weekly basis) keep track of GDP trends why they dont do the same for PLI.

All government policies are based on GDP why because it directly effects taxation. Shouldnt it be based on PLI or may be some other welfare index.

Most Indians are ready for any kind of economic reform as long as they have reason to believe it is really good for the larger majority. What better way than say proverty has reduced from XX% to XX% in a XX years of liberalisation.

[lordstanher]

Well, IMHO a nation/society wud be rich/poor based on not just the material/economical growth but also its social values/ethics. I wud say India is getting richer as an economy w/ more materialistic benefits (we hav equal level of technology/luxury in our personal lives today w/ developed nations as opposed to 20 yrs ago) & also monetary oppurtuinities (business etc.) but as a society its getting poorer as ppl. from all strata of society r getting more material/sensual-oriented as those of developed nations hav, & thus steady decay of basic moral values/ethics is setting in......!

[mahadevan]

Just like a company having lag,log,exponential growth, stagnating, decline phases, an economy (for that matter many more things) also has those phases, to get into the exponential growth phase, we need critical mass, we are approaching that. Once we get it our rise would be the envy of every body. Hi Sandeep, it might appear theoritical, but it will happen.
Lordstander you said we are losing our moral values, other than good family values, what high moral values do we have that the west does not ?

[lordstanher]

what high moral values do we have that the west does not ?

Actually this qsn. wud be very much suitable for asking w/ respect to today's society.......
If I might rephrase ur qsn.- We were always known to've possessed high social/moral values tat the West allegedly did not, but wat all do we hav left now??
And as for ur mention of family values, I'm dubious abt those existing among the coming gens. either- marriage today has become a disguised business deal based on the groom's/bride's qualifications & financial/social status, having children has become a goal of producing further qualified professionals w/ the same status, caring for aged parents is near forgotten.........and even as a nuclear family, living together as one is yet again a matter of luck w/ job prospects abroad beckoning (unless the whole family migrates abroad! ).......

[Rohit]

There is a stark difference between moral values and social and family values. The former is primarily based on individual's conscience, initially developed through intra-family, interfamily and wider social interactions, which is, in turn, further developed by one's own cognitive ability in better judging and distinguishing between right and wrong, even when the right and wrong may be conceptually very subjective. That is why we would find more commonality in moral judgements of different cultures than in formulation of social and family values. While the latter is based more on religious and cultural grounds, which may significantly differ across various societies and cultures. Hence, it is important not to mix moral values with social, family and cultural values and put them under one category for intersociety comparison.

As far as the standard of moral judgement is concerned, I would be of the opinion that the western moral values surpass by far the eastern moral values, that is why western countries have far better concepts of social welfare, welfare society and better appreciation and respect for individual's freedom. To protect such moral values, effective enforcement of law and order is essential; and one would see far better and efficient law and order enforcement institutions operating in Western societies than that in Eastern societies. Lack or dilution of such institutional strength is indicative of moral corruption within the society; and one would make clear observations of more widely spread moral corruption in Indian subcontinent and other Asian countries, leaving only a few as exceptions.

The main reason for the declining cultural values in India has more to do with India's own long running lag in socio-economic growth, which is attributable entirely to us Indians only and to no one else. We Indians have formulated and adopted certain fatal ideas and misconceptions in many areas, and they are so deeply rooted that they are now not easy to get rid off from the Indian social and cultural structures, which ironically drives more and more Indians to undermine even those values that are worth preserving.

[lordstanher]

As far as the standard of moral judgement is concerned, I would be of the opinion that the western moral values surpass by far the eastern moral values

Really?? Oh, well, to each their own opinion....!

western countries have far better concepts of social welfare, welfare society and better appreciation and respect for individual's freedom.

Hmm....personally, I find tat the concept/definition of individual's freedom differs in sum way or the other in different societies, not just West vs East.....

The main reason for the declining cultural values in India has more to do with India's own long running lag in socio-economic growth, which is attributable entirely to us Indians only and to no one else. We Indians have formulated and adopted certain fatal ideas and misconceptions in many areas, and they are so deeply rooted that they are now not easy to get rid off from the Indian social and cultural structures, which ironically drives more and more Indians to undermine even those values that are worth preserving.

Actually, I find the more widely-acknowledged reason for this decline in values today is the increase in materialism among Indians. This also branches out to the moral corruption we find today. But the major decline is bcos of today's greater society adopting misinterpreted notions abt modern civilisation & progress from the West, and this is attributable entirely to us Indians! Majority of us feel tat the developed nations in the West came up bcos of their lack of spiritual/cultural backing & material-oriented goals......this misguided notion has lead to disregard of even basic moral values/ideals among us w/ our ppl. gearing themselves entirely in materialistic directions, whereby they enter the realms of money, power & pleasure. While the aims of most men in our society hav for long been www- Wine, Wealth & Women (where women not nec. = wife!), women today r moving w/ equal steadfastness towards the aims of 3M- Money, Material comforts & Men (again now Men not nec. = husband!).....
Once this state has been reached by a society, the power of discrimination between basic rights/wrongs slowly declines among individuals, leading (eventually) to even the total ruin of the entire society, even if the nation, as an economy wud be fully developed.

[Rohit]

Actually, I find the more widely-acknowledged reason for this decline in values today is the increase in materialism among Indians. This also branches out to the moral corruption we find today.

Majority of us feel tat the developed nations in the West came up bcos of their lack of spiritual/cultural backing & material-oriented goals......this misguided notion has lead to disregard of even basic moral values/ideals among us w/ our ppl.

I definitely would have agreed with your assertions only if they had been expressed after taking into account the Indian historical record of over a thousand years. Simply because the assertions made after some introspection would have been entirely different and couldn’t have been the same as they are.

As it is quite common phenomenon among many Indians, taking shelter under the name of conventional spiritualism and conveniently use it to cover the hard facts about our repeated past failures in protecting ourselves from foreign invasions. The conflicting fixations of conventional spiritualistic world-view can hardly be an effective weapon in deterring invaders who posses entirely different world-views from that of ours and have determined to conquer the world.

The point I am trying to make is that the conventional spiritualism, as we believe in India, is entirely of the different nature than that believed by Islamic Moguls and Christian Europeans. For them, the material world is absolutely real and not an illusion as we Indians are lead to believe, which completely undermined the value and importance of scientific and technological development for our timely progress. While in the west they considered material gains and the knowledge on them equally important, if not more important, for the well being and development of their people and society. While the contemporary Indians strongly believed that only ignorant would think of material gains and acquire scientific knowledge on physical world as it is completely useless for spiritual development as the physical world itself is not real but a mere illusion. Such extremes of absurd ideas can do nothing but to completely mess up peoples’ mind, impeding the cognitive development of the entire Indian mass, which could only result in generations after generations with no higher than mediocre intellect.

A non-conventional spiritualism can be classed as a highly value oriented world-view based on rational inquiry of the nature and the quest for rational knowledge with high moral and ethical principles. - The notion grasped by the self-actualising and scientific community.

In essence, spiritualism, in general, comes in with different shapes and sizes with different tastes, flavours and colours to satisfy different needs of different sections of human society.

Thus, spiritualism, in general, is essentially a subjective product of human cognition and nothing more.

Therefore, only a balanced view of both can satisfy the objective and subjective human needs.

Like I said earlier, there is a discernible distinction between the notion of moral values and the notion of religious, social and cultural values. In no way one can categorise materialism and conventional spiritualism under the same heading of morality and ethics, as they are not, by any measure, the choices of right and wrong.

There is a good example of morality triumphing over the false and heedless religious, social and cultural traditions/values. The example of Sati tradition (self-cremation after husband's death) in India was, for some absurd reasons, integrated as religious, social and cultural values, but had to be abolished by some sane minds only a couple of centuries ago. Why? Simply because the religious, social and cultural tradition of sati was utterly unjust and immoral.

Why spiritualism cannot be the subject of moral judgement is made even clearer if examined closely. Most, if not all, moral and ethical judgements directly involve objective and perceptible reality, while the conventional spiritualism involves only subjective and non-perceptible mental dealings.

- A person can be neither a materialist nor a conventional spiritualist, can have a balanced worldview and lead a happy life.

- A person can be totally allergic to all kinds of material possessions but may have 100% conventional spiritual convictions, but he is definitely destined to become destitute, poor and vulnerable to being bullied and then enslaved by the healthier and wealthier and end-up with a miserable life.

- A person can be a materialist with little conventional spiritual convictions, can have a balanced worldview, become wealthier and lead a happy life.

- A person can be both a materialist and a conventional spiritualist, can have a relatively balanced worldview and lead a happy life.

So, there is no mileage in just trumpeting conventional spiritualism/culture etc. and ignore the ground realities when a large section of the society is struggling to meet even their basic needs. Conventional spiritualism neither can provide the shield against the invading forces nor can it feed millions of empty stomachs. Only a sustained pragmatic and balanced approach can meet both the human needs. In fact, it is rather us being not able to realise these factual realities early and soon enough, which would amount to an appalling aggregate of cognitive, social and moral corruption.

[lordstanher]

Rohit,
While I do agree w/ most of ur points, I also wish to clarify tat I did not intend to emphasise on conventional or- if u might call it so- hardcore/fanatical spirituality.
While it is not possible for the entire society to totally shun materialistic gains, for as u pointed out, there hav been major developments beneficail to society bcos of those, at the same time we must hav the power of discrimination to choose between wat is right/necessary & wat is not. And tat exactly is wat our culture teaches us.
Only once the ppl. of every level hav tat power can the sciety develop in the real sense.
And yes even spirituality, if followed as a pure belief or as a need to maintain certain 'vows' like total dettachment, is a sheer bane!
In fact our original concept of spirituality has of late, sadly been grossly misinterpreted to a large extent by many ppl. in our society as well as otuside. Many foreigners who've supposedly studied our spiritual concepts developed the opinion tat our philosophy instructs all of us to basically abandon everything in the 'wordly' life, even basic facilities/comforts (inc. wearing footwear for our feet!) & live as if in the pre-historic times.....and thus they (& so do we today) end up attributing our entire culture/philosophy itself to our backwardness! Which is actually wrong.
If our culture's been based entirely on conventional spirituality tat dictates total detachment even from relations, then we wud be following hypocrisy, 'cos we r one nation tat is (or was?) strongly bound by family relations/values as per our culture, eg. supporting our children/taking care of our parents etc......!
Now taking the case of India in the last 50+ yrs since Independence, cud r u really be sure tat we havn't developed ourselves as a nation (& r now even deteriorating in various aspects) bcos we were hung up on conventional spirituality?? If its the general masses- tat too those in the rural areas- then tat maybe right........but wat abt the various politicians & other authorities in responsible positions who were running the country?? Its not as if they lived on conventional spirituality like yogis/sadhus & were totally detached from the materialistic world! Quite the opposite in fact!
Most of them were educated & lived highly sophisticated lifestyles, being well in touch w/ the material world, inc. having had the chance to interact w/ foreign nations as well......yet, y did our nation not develop under their leadership all these decades??
Its bcos they were the main ppl. to be excessively materialistic, many of them caring for their personal gains of wealth, power & even pleasure rather than fulfilling their duty of wat they were supposed to do in their positions!
Had they been material-oriented enuff to just bring in scientific/economical development for us, tat wud've been worthwhile.....but no, they went over to the other extreme of materialism!
Thus had we been half as religious/culture bound as we seemed so far, we wud've utilised the teachings of our culture/spiritual philosophy accordingly & wud've brought in the many scientific/technological/economic changes tat the West had developed, w/out having to give up our own culture/values, as we r today.
As Swami Vivekananda had rightly said, we need just the Western technology combined w/ the Eastern philosophy for our total development. And tat these 2 wud clash w/ each other is a myth!
Even as u stated, we can hav a balance between materialism & spirituality, provided we hav the power of discrimination for tat balance.
For eg. even today, when our culture won't by ne means, come in the way of bringing in better roads in our cities (atleast), we don't care abt adopting this from the West! Nor abt better/safer public transport or efficient infrastructure........the list goes on!
But we've managed to copy w/ less than half the speed, celebrating Valentine's Day, internet porn, uncontrolled/casual sex, live-in relationships, pubs/nightclubs & end up complaining tat our culture/values r coming in the way of these & 'hampering our development'!!
So where is the question of balance between materialism & sprituality here??
So as its not prudent to hav conventional spirituality triumph over materialistic needs, its also necessary to hav a proper understanding of our spirituality in order to guide us in filtering in the necessary/useful alone from other cultures & develop oursleves accordingly, or else even then we wud end up in an appalling extreme of social/moral corruption.

[Rohit]

Now taking the case of India in the last 50+ yrs since Independence, cud r u really be sure tat we havn't developed ourselves as a nation (& r now even deteriorating in various aspects) bcos we were hung up on conventional spirituality?

If its the general masses- tat too those in the rural areas- then tat maybe right........but wat abt the various politicians & other authorities in responsible positions who were running the country?

Most of them were educated & lived highly sophisticated lifestyles, being well in touch w/ the material world, inc. having had the chance to interact w/ foreign nations as well......yet, y did our nation not develop under their leadership all these decades?

Even as u stated, we can hav a balance between materialism & spirituality, provided we hav the power of discrimination for tat balance.

So where is the question of balance between materialism & spirituality here?

Not only I can see it, but understand it too, why it is so difficult and/or upsetting to reconcile with all these enigmatic and conflicting situations that can easily, but inaccurately, be viewed as something that have dropped in totally uninvited from nowhere.

But I don't see it that way. Since, as I said it earlier, only we Indians as we were and as we are, are totally responsible for our own destruction and making ourselves vulnerable for submitting our identity and self-respect to the invading forces and cultures.

If one ever cares analysing it carefully and thoroughly, one would hardly fail to see that all these conundrums clearly trace their roots only to our non-realistic and primitive "Way of Thinking and Doing Things". Unfortunately, the Indian "Way of Thinking and Doing Things" have undoubtedly remained, for too long, revolving around developing concepts and ideas that were predominantly oriented towards religious and spiritual goals with no realistic grasp of the physical reality around us.

-The evidence of the same primitive "Way of Thinking and Doing Things", centred around utterly baseless mental fragments of dogmatic extravagance can still be witnessed and observed in many mediocre Indians having no discerning power or clue whatsoever about the detrimental impact such impotent and impetuous mindset would have on the cognitive development of their children.

Having lived in such a narrow and restricted worldview for centuries, it is not surprising at all that we have ended-up in forming a rigid, undiscerning and injudicious society that seriously trapped itself in formulating some of the most damaging and detrimental binding (i.e. impeding) factors that were enough to ruin us forever.

The binding factors such as:

-Caste system
-Gender discriminations
-Ignorance
-Misconception of human intelligence
-None of the Indian languages could evolve, develop and progress beyond religious cults and poetic arena
-Religious rivalry leading to blind accommodation and countless inventions of Gods and Goddesses.
-Restricted development of skills and productivity to agricultural activities only
-Unquestionable devotion and duty towards phony "sadhus" and "sants"
-Widespread blind beliefs in gods, fate, births and rebirths, soul liberation, reincarnations etc.
-Widespread illiteracy
-Widespread superstitions etc.

Once a society has suppressed and restricted its conceptual grasp and development to such a blinding and narrow field, the developments of their language begins to suffer seriously; and so suffers the cognitive development of the masses and coming generations after generations.

The adoption of English language in our higher educational needs, commercial and professional dealings is an obvious evidence of our linguistic handicap. Once, a society drives itself in the helpless adoption of a non-native language, the adoption of non-native culture becomes unstoppable by default as, language and culture are essentially inseparable entities, unless one can de-culturise oneself, which, for most Indians, is cognitively even more difficult to do and achieve under the given situation. In nutshell, what we are seeing today is nothing but a mutually interactive process of multiple binding factors acting in conjunction.

Such widespread cognitive underdevelopment of society would eventually lead to:

-Linguistic corruption
-Cultural corruption
-Moral corruption
-Social corruption
-Political corruption
-Over population
-Regional conflicts
-Social and political chaos
-Social discord etc.

Thus, a complete resolution to the dilemma of tracing the source of power to discriminate and judge what is rational, right and necessary and what is irrational, wrong and unnecessary is undoubtedly leads to one's own "Way of Thinking and Doing Things", which in turn, leads to the cognitive development of individuals in the society, irrespective of the culture and creed.

So, what we are witnessing is not just snap-shots of independent and non-interactive events but they are the consequential outcome of a long chain-reaction of mutually interacting multiple factors.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to go through an in-depth analysis of such chain-reaction and cover all the points in as detail as one would like to. Also one may find all these too shocking and disturbing to absorb and reconcile with, but the point I am trying to make here is not that strenuous to grasp for further introspection.